To monitor aqueous fluids, particularly in drinking water treatment or sewage treatment plants, representative fluid samples frequently have to be drawn at remote locations and transferred to a laboratory for analysis.
The drawing and transport of such fluid samples are typically carried out automatically by means of samplers installed in situ, which may be portable. Such samplers for preferably automatically taking fluid samples are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,011, WO-A 9502176, or in applicant's European Patent Application 00 12 2411.2, which was not published prior to the filing date of the present application. Each of those samplers comprises                a container carrier for holding sample containers for receiving fluid samples and        a cover part for closing the container carrier.        
Furthermore, the samplers each comprise a pumping device disposed within the sampler housing for drawing fluid from a source of fluid and for filling fluid samples into the sample containers, as well as control electronics, which are also contained in the sampler housing.
To transport the sample containers from the sampler to the laboratory, use is generally made of a separate, particularly basket-like, sample container holder which, as described in WO-A 9502176, for example, can also be used as an insert for the container carrier. It is also common practice to bring transportable, particularly portable, samplers to the laboratory in toto.
A disadvantage of the first-mentioned transport variant is that, aside from the additional component for the sampler, namely the sample container holder, an additional transport container is necessary to isolate the sample containers from perturbing environmental influences and, if necessary, protect them against unauthorized access. In the other of the two aforementioned transport variants, the main disadvantage lies in the fact that the sampler may have to be installed several times at the same sample-gathering location merely for transport reasons.